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Afghanistan attacks on education

2.
July 2006 Volume 18, Number 6 (C)
Lessons in Terror
Attacks on Education in Afghanistan
Glossary...........................................................................................................................................1
I. Summary......................................................................................................................................3
Plight of the Education System...............................................................................................6
Sources and Impact of Insecurity............................................................................................8
International and Afghan Response to Insecurity................................................................9
Key Recommendations...........................................................................................................10
II. Background: Afghanistan Since the Fall of the Taliban...................................................13
The Taliban’s Ouster, the Bonn Process, and the Afghanistan Compact ......................13
Insecurity in Afghanistan........................................................................................................17
Education in Afghanistan and its Importance for Development ....................................23
III. Attacks on Schools, Teachers, and Students ....................................................................31
Who and Why ..........................................................................................................................32
Attacks by Taliban and Warlords on Education in Southern and
Southeastern Afghanistan.......................................................................................................35
Kandahar City and Province..............................................................................................35
Helmand Province...............................................................................................................47
Zabul Province ....................................................................................................................50
Ghazni Province..................................................................................................................54
Paktia Province....................................................................................................................56
Logar Province.....................................................................................................................57
Charkh District, Logar........................................................................................................58
Wardak Province .................................................................................................................61
Laghman Province ..............................................................................................................64
Impact of Crime and Impunity on Education................................................................69
IV. The Indirect Impact of Insecurity on Education.............................................................75
Insufficient Development Aid and Services........................................................................78
Shortage of Schools and Infrastructure................................................................................84
Shortage of Teachers...............................................................................................................88
Low Quality of Education......................................................................................................91
Poverty ......................................................................................................................................93
Negative Attitudes About Education...................................................................................94

3.
V. The Inadequate Response of the Afghan Government and its International
Supporters to Attacks on Education...................................................................................... 101
Failure to Monitor Attacks.................................................................................................. 103
Failure to Prevent and Respond to Attacks...................................................................... 104
Nationbuilding on the Cheap: the U.S.-led Coalition, ISAF, and
Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs)......................................................................... 106
The Provincial Reconstruction Teams.......................................................................... 109
VI. Legal Standards................................................................................................................... 112
The Right to Education....................................................................................................... 112
International Humanitarian Law and Attacks on Schools ............................................. 115
VII. Recommendations............................................................................................................ 117
Acknowledgments..................................................................................................................... 123
Chart: Attacks on Teachers, Students, and Schools in Afghanistan ................................. 125

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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 18, NO. 6(C)1
Glossary
ANSO: Afghanistan Nongovernmental Organization Safety Office, which monitors security
incidents that affect the operations of nongovernmental organizations.
Afghani: The currency of Afghanistan. The afghani traded at various levels in 2005-2006: one
U.S. dollar bought between 45 and 50 afghanis.
burqa and chadori: Terms used interchangeably in many parts of Afghanistan to describe a
head-to-toe garment worn by women that completely covers the body and face, allowing vision
through a mesh screen.
Dari: The dialect of Persian spoken in Afghanistan, one of Afghanistan’s main languages.
hijab: Generally, dress for women that conforms to Islamic standards, varying among
countries and cultures; usually includes covering the hair and obscuring the shape of the body.
ISAF: International Security Assistance Force provided by the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization under mandate of the United Nations.
mujahedin: “Those who engage in jihad.” By common usage in Afghanistan, and as used in
this report, the term refers to the forces that fought successive Soviet-backed governments
from 1978 until 1992, although many former mujahedin parties continue to use it in reference
to themselves.
night letters (“Shabnameh”): Letters left in homes or public places, such as roadsides and
mosques, threatening individuals or communities for engaging in certain activities. Letters may
be anonymous or signed, and may warn against activities such as working with the government
or with foreigners, or sending children, often girls in particular, to school.
Pashto: The primary language spoken by many Pashtuns.
Pashtun: The largest ethnicity in Afghanistan and a plurality of the population (Pashtuns also
reside in Pakistan).
PRTs: Provincial Reconstruction Teams, military units ranging in size from eighty to several
hundred, with a small civilian development component. Each PRT is fielded by a donor

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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 18, NO. 6(C) 2
country as part of NATO or the U.S.-led Coalition forces. The make up and function of the
PRTs differ based on the donor country, the mission of the PRT, and the location.
shura: “Council.” The shuras mentioned in this report include both governmental and
nongovernmental bodies.

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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 18, NO. 6(C)3
I. Summary
From fear of terrorism, from threats of the enemies of Afghanistan, today as we speak, some
100,000 Afghan children who went to school last year, and the year before last, do not go to
school.
—President Karzai on International Women’s Day,
March 8, 2006.
During Ramadan [late 2005], the girls were still going to school. There was a letter posted
on the community’s mosque saying that “men who are working with NGOs and girls going
to school need to be careful about their safety. If we put acid on their faces or they are
murdered, then the blame will be on the parents.” . . . After that, we were scared and talked
about it, but we decided to let them keep going anyway. But after Eid, a second letter was
posted on the street near to there, and the community decided that it was not worth the risk
[and stopped all girls over age ten from going to school]. . . . My daughters are afraid—they
are telling us “we’ll get killed and be lying on the streets and you won’t even know.”
—Mother of two girls withdrawn from fourth and fifth
grades, Kandahar city, December 8, 2005.
Brutal attacks by armed opposition groups on Afghan teachers, students, and their schools
have occurred throughout much of Afghanistan in recent months, particularly in the south.
These attacks, and the inability of the government and its international backers to stop them,
demonstrate the deteriorating security conditions under which many Afghans are now living.
While ultimate responsibility lies with the perpetrators, much about the response of the
international community and the Afghan government can and must be improved if
Afghanistan is to move forward. The situation is not hopeless, yet.
This crisis of insecurity, now affecting millions of Afghans, was predictable and avoidable. The
international community, led by the United States, has consistently failed to provide the
economic, political, and military support necessary for securing the most basic rights of the
Afghan people. As detailed below, groups opposed to the authority of the Afghan central
government and its international supporters have increasingly filled this vacuum, using tactics
such as suicide bombings and attacks on “soft targets” such as schools and teachers to instill
terror in ordinary Afghans and thus turn them away from a central government that is unable
to protect them. Such attacks are not just criminal offenses in violation of Afghan law; they are
abuses that infringe upon the fundamental right to education. When committed as part of the
ongoing armed conflict in Afghanistan, these attacks are serious violations of international
humanitarian law—they are war crimes.

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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 18, NO. 6(C) 4
Attacks on Teachers, Students, and
Schools 1/1/05 - 6/21/06
1
2
6
15
17
7
9
7
10
7
12
24
14
8
28
22
12
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
January 2005
M arch 2005
April 2005
M ay 2005
June 2005
July 2005
August 2005
September 2005
October 2005
November 2005
December 2005
January 2006
February 2006
M arch 2006
April 2006
M ay 2006
June 1- June 21, 2006
MonthofAttacks
Number of Attacks
Insecurity—including acts designed to instill terror in civilians, actual fighting between rival
groups or armed opposition groups and international security forces, and rampant
lawlessness—affects all aspects of Afghans’ lives: their ability to work, to reach medical care, to
go to the market, and to attend school. Afghan women and girls, who have always confronted
formidable social and historical barriers to traveling freely or receiving an education, especially
under the Taliban and their mujahedin predecessors, are particularly hard hit.
This report examines the impact of insecurity on
education in Afghanistan, especially on girls’
education. It concentrates on armed attacks on
the education system in the south and southeast
of the country, where resurgent opposition
forces, local warlords, and increasingly powerful
criminal groups have committed abuses aimed
at terrorizing the civilian population and
contesting the authority of the central
government and its foreign supporters. This
confrontation has stunted and, in some places,
even stopped the development and
reconstruction work so desperately desired and
needed by local residents.
Attacks on all aspects of the education process sharply increased in late 2005 and the first half
of 2006. As of this writing, more attacks have been reported in the first half of 2006 than in all
of 2005. Previously secure schools, such as girls’ schools in Kandahar city and in northern
provinces such as Balkh, have come under attack. There have been reports of at least seventeen
assassinations of teachers and education officials in 2005 and 2006; several are detailed below.
This report also documents more than 204 attacks on teachers, students, and schools in the
past eighteen months (January 2005 to June 21, 2006).
Even more common have been threatening “night letters,” alone or preceding actual attacks,
distributed in mosques, around schools, and on routes taken by students and teachers, warning
them against attending school and making credible threats of violence.
Physical attacks or threats against schools and their staff hurt education directly and indirectly.
Directly, an attack may force a school to close, either because the building is destroyed or
because the teachers and students are too afraid to attend. Attacks and threats may also have an
indirect ripple effect, causing schools in the surrounding area to shut down as well.

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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 18, NO. 6(C)5
Attacks on Teachers, Students, and Schools by
Province: January 1, 2005 - June 21, 2006
3
12
2
0
4
1
1
0
11
6
0
0
3
7
8
2
7
16
3
36
4
2
6
27
0
16
3
4
1
0
10
1
3
2
0 10 20 30 40
Zabul
Wardak
Uruzgan
Takhar
Sari Pul
Samangan
Parw an
Panjshir
Paktika
Paktia
Nuristan
Nimroz
Nangarhar
Logar
Laghman
Kunduz
Kunar
Khost
Kapisa
Kandahar
Kabul
Jaw zjan
Herat
Helmand
Ghor
Ghazni
Faryab
Farah
Daykundi
Bamyan
Balkh
Baghlan
Badghis
Badakhsan
Province
Number of Attacks
Where schools do not close altogether,
each incident influences the risk
assessment that parents and students
undertake every day. Single episodes of
violence, even in far away districts,
accumulate to establish a pattern; in a
country as traumatized by violence as
Afghanistan, teachers, parents, and
students are keenly attuned to
fluctuations in this pattern and decide
to continue—or stop—going to school
based on how they view the general
climate of insecurity. Parents often have
a lower threshold for pulling their
daughters out of school than boys,
given greater social restrictions on girls’
movements and legitimate concerns
about sexual harassment and violence.
As a result of the cumulative impact of
attacks and closures over the past three
years, schools, which were only recently
opened or reopened, have once again
been shut down in many districts in the
south and southeast. In many districts
in these areas, no schools operate at all.
General insecurity and violence targeted against education also exacerbate other barriers that
keep children, particularly girls, from going to school. These include having to travel a long way
to the nearest school or having no school available at all; poor school infrastructure; a shortage
of qualified teachers, especially women teachers; the low quality of teaching; and poverty. All of
these factors affect, and are affected by, Afghanistan’s varied but conservative culture. Each
has a greater impact on girls and women, in large part because there are far fewer girls’ schools
than boys’ schools.
Measuring the deleterious impact of insecurity on education provides a strong diagnostic
indicator of the costs of insecurity more generally. Basic education is important for children’s
intellectual and social development and provides them with critical skills for leading productive
lives as citizens and workers. Education is central to the realization of other human rights, such
as freedom of expression, association, and assembly; full participation in one’s community; and
freedom from discrimination, sexual exploitation, and the worst forms of child labor.

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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 18, NO. 6(C) 6
Education also facilitates many other socially important activities, such as improvements in the
economy, development of the rule of law, and public health. Restrictions on girls’ right to
education especially hurt the country’s development: for example, girls’ and women’s literacy is
associated with lower infant and maternal mortality and, unsurprisingly, better education for
future generations of children. Girls not educated today are the missing teachers,
administrators, and policymakers of tomorrow. After the Taliban, Afghanistan cannot afford to
lose another generation. Such a tragedy would compound the misfortune the already
beleaguered nation has faced.
In focusing on the nexus between insecurity and access to education, we seek to establish new
benchmarks for assessing the performance of Afghan and international security forces and
measuring progress on the security front. The benchmarks most often used at present—
numbers of Afghan troops trained and international troops deployed, or the number of armed
opponents killed—are important, but they do not accurately assess the security situation. What
is more important is how much these and related efforts improve the day-to-day security of the
Afghan people. We urge that access to education be made one key benchmark.
We suggest this benchmark for three reasons:
• on a political level, because teachers and schools are typically the most basic level of
government and the most common point of interaction (in many villages the only
point of contact) between ordinary Afghans and their government;
• on a practical level, because this benchmark lends itself to diagnostic, nationally
comparable data analysis (for instance, the number of operational schools, the number
of students, the enrollment of girls) focused on outcomes instead of the number of
troops or vague references to providing security; and,
• on a policy level, because providing education to a new generation of Afghans is
essential to the country’s long-term development.
Plight of the Education System
The Taliban’s prohibition on educating girls and women was rightly viewed as one of their
most egregious human rights violations, even for a government notorious for operating
without respect for basic human rights and dignities. But even before the Taliban, the
mujahedin factions that ripped the country apart between 1992 and 1996 often opposed
modern education, in particular the education of girls.
Since the United States and its coalition partners ousted the Taliban from power in 2001,
Afghans throughout the country have told Human Rights Watch that they want their
children—including girls—to be educated. Afghans have asked their government and its

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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 18, NO. 6(C)7
international supporters to help create the infrastructure and environment necessary for
educating their children.
A great deal of progress has been made. When the Taliban were forced from power, may
students returned to school. According to the World Bank, an estimated 774,000 children
attended school in 2001.1 By 2005, with girls’ education no longer prohibited and with much
international assistance, 5.2. million children were officially enrolled in grades one through
twelve, according to the Ministry of Education.2 (All statistics on education in Afghanistan
should be understood as rough approximations at best.)
Despite these improvements, the situation is far from what it could or should have been,
particularly for girls. The majority of primary-school-age girls remain out of school, and many
children in rural areas have no access to schools at all. At the secondary level, the numbers are
far worse: gross enrollment rates were only 5 percent for girls in 2004, compared with 20
percent for boys.3 Moreover, the gains of the past four-and-a-half years appear to have reached
a plateau. The Ministry of Education told Human Rights Watch that it did not expect total
school enrollments to increase in 2006; indeed, they expect new enrollments to decrease by
2008 as refugee returns level off.4 In areas where students do attend school, the quality of
education is extremely low.
Two critical factors are, first, that attacks on teachers, students, and schools by armed groups
have forced schools to close, and, second, that attacks against representatives of the Afghan
government and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), along with general lawlessness, has
made it too dangerous for them to open new schools or continue to operate in certain areas.
Where schools do remain open, parents are often afraid to send their children—in particular,
girls—to school. The continuing denial of education to most Afghan children is a human rights
crisis that should be of serious concern to those who strive to end Afghanistan’s savage cycle
of violence and war.
1
World Bank, “GenderStats: Database of Gender Statistics,” http://devdata.worldbank.org/ (retrieved April 17, 2006).
2
Ministry of Education, Education Management Information System (draft), 2004-2005. The now commonly cited figure
of 6 million includes adults and children outside of formal schools: 55,500-57,000 people (of whom only around 4,000-
5,000 are girls and women) enrolled in vocational, Islamic, and teacher education programs, and 1.24 million people
enrolled in non-formal education. Human Rights Watch interview with Mahammeed Azim Karbalai, Director, Planning
Department, Ministry of Education, Kabul, March 11, 2006.
3
World Bank, “GenderStats: Database of Gender Statistics.” The gross school enrollment ratio is the number of
children enrolled in a school level (primary or secondary), regardless of age, divided by the population of the age group
that officially corresponds to the same level. By comparison, the net school enrollment ratio is the number of children
enrolled in a school level who belong to the age group that officially corresponds to that level, divided by the total
population of the same age group.
4
Human Rights Watch interview with Mohammed Azim Karbalai, Director, Planning Department, Ministry of Education,
Kabul, March 11, 2006.

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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 18, NO. 6(C) 8
Sources and Impact of Insecurity
Insecurity in Afghanistan is most dire in the country’s south and southeast, although it is by no
means limited to those areas. The problem is particularly acute outside of larger urban areas
and off major roads, where an estimated 70 percent of Afghans reside and where U.S. forces,
the International Security Assistance Force led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO), and Afghanistan’s small but growing security forces rarely reach.
Three different (and at times overlapping) groups are broadly responsible for causing insecurity
in Afghanistan: (1) opposition armed forces, primarily the Taliban and forces allied with the
Taliban movement or with veteran Pashtun warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, (2) regional
warlords and militia commanders, ostensibly loyal to the central government, now entrenched
as powerbrokers after the flawed parliamentary elections of October 2005, and (3) criminal
groups, mostly involved in Afghanistan’s booming narcotics trade—a trade which is believed
to provide much of the financing for the warlords and opposition forces. Each of the above
groups attempts to impose their rule on the local population, disrupt or subvert the activity of
the central government, and either divert development aid into their own coffers or block
development altogether.
In many cases that Human Rights Watch investigated, we were not able to determine with
certainty either who was behind a particular attack or the cause. But it is clear that many attacks
on teachers, students, and schools have been carried out by Taliban forces (now apparently a
confederation of mostly Pashtun tribal militias and political groups) or groups allied with the
Taliban, such as the forces of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e Islami (previously bitter rivals of
the Taliban). But the Taliban are clearly not the only perpetrators of such attacks, because in
many areas local observers and Human Rights Watch’s investigation indicated the involvement
of militias of local warlords (for instance in Wardak province, where forces loyal to the warlord
Abdul Rabb al Rasul Sayyaf hold sway) or criminal groups (such as those controlling smuggling
routes in Kandahar and Helmand provinces).
The motives behind the attacks differ. In some instances, it appears that the attacks are
motivated by ideological opposition to education generally or to girls’ education specifically. In
other instances schools and teachers may be attacked as symbols of the government (often the
only government presence in an area) or, if run by international nongovernmental organizations,
as the work of foreigners. In a few cases, the attacks seem to reflect local grievances and rivalries.
Regardless of the motivation of the attackers, the result is the same: Afghanistan’s educational
system, one of the weakest in the world, is facing a serious and worsening threat.
Insecurity, and the attendant difficulty it causes for government agencies, foreign reconstruction
groups, and aid organizations, has also distorted national-level reconstruction policies in

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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 18, NO. 6(C)9
Afghanistan. Southern and southeastern Afghanistan, which have suffered most from insecurity,
have witnessed a significant drop in reconstruction activity.
Many NGOs, which play a significant role in providing education and other development
activities in Afghanistan, no longer feel it is safe to operate outside of urban areas and off
major roads linking them. As of this writing—midway through 2006—already twenty-four aid
workers have been killed in Afghanistan this year, a significant increase from the rates seen in
previous years, when thirty-one aid workers were killed in 2005 and twenty-four in 2004.
Several large international NGOs told Human Rights Watch in December 2005 that they had
curtailed their activities in the south and southeast or aborted plans to operate there as a result
of insecurity. Afghan NGOs also face significant constraints. Together, security, logistical, and
infrastructural limitations are keeping organizations out of the areas where their assistance is
most needed. A senior Western education expert working in Afghanistan expressed his
apprehension about this phenomenon: “We are very concerned about disparities that we’re
creating. We’re not covering the whole country. There are some places in the country that have
never seen a U.N. operation.”5
The failure to provide adequate aid to southern and southeastern Afghanistan also has
significant political impact because it has fostered resentment against the perceived failures and
biases of the central Afghan government and its international supporters. Afghans in the
largely Pashtun south and southeast complain when they see more development aid and
projects go to non-Pashtun areas in other parts of the country. Lacking the ability to confront
the security threats facing them, they feel that they are being doubly punished—by the Taliban
and criminal groups who impinge on their security, and by international aid providers being
driven away due to (justified) fear of the Taliban, other opposition elements, and criminal
groups.
International and Afghan Response to Insecurity
The international community has shortchanged Afghanistan’ security and development since
the fall of the Taliban both qualitatively and quantitatively. International military and economic
aid to Afghanistan was, and remains, a fraction of that disbursed by the international
community in other recent post-conflict situations. For the past four years, Afghanistan’s
government and its international supporters, chiefly the United States, have understood
security mostly as a matter of the relative dominance of various armed forces. Presented this
way, addressing insecurity revolves around matters such as troop numbers, geographic
coverage, and political allegiance. Development and reconstruction become viewed as part of a
“hearts and minds” campaign necessary to placate a potentially hostile population—not as
5
Human Rights Watch interview with high-level U.N. staffer who requested anonymity because he did not want to
publicize internal U.N. debates, Kabul, December 5, 2005.

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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 18, NO. 6(C) 10
preconditions for a healthy, peaceful, and stable society, and certainly not as steps toward the
realization of the fundamental human rights of the Afghan people.
The international community’s chief tool for providing security and local development in
Afghanistan has been the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), military units ranging in
size from eighty to three hundred military personnel combined with a small number (usually
about 10 percent of the total) of civilians from a development background or the diplomatic
corps. The PRT program, initially developed by the United States to compensate for the
inadequate troop numbers committed to secure Afghanistan after the Taliban, eventually
became the template for international security assistance. After three years, the PRT program
has now expanded to most of Afghanistan’s provinces; as of this writing there are twenty-three
PRTs operating in Afghanistan (note, however, that the presence of small PRTs in a province
does not necessarily mean there is geographic coverage of the province outside PRT
headquarters). The United States still operates the most PRTs, all of them now in southern and
southeastern Afghanistan, where military threats are more pronounced. Other countries,
mostly under the umbrella of NATO, including the United Kingdom, Canada, the
Netherlands, and Germany, as well as non-NATO U.S. allies such as New Zealand, also field
PRTs. The U.K., Canada, and the Netherlands have begun moving PRTs into some provinces
in southern Afghanistan since mid-2005. NATO is scheduled to take over security in southern
Afghanistan by mid 2006.
The PRTs were conceived of as a blend of military frontier posts and humanitarian and
development aid providers. This has proven to be an uneasy combination, from the military
point of view as well as in terms of development. There is no coherent nationwide strategy for
the PRTs, nor are there any clear benchmarks for their performance. Each PRT reports to its
own national capital, and, despite some efforts at coordination, does not share information or
lessons learned with other PRTs. The handful of public assessments of the PRTs’ performance
have generally agreed that thus far, the PRTs have succeeded in improving security and
development only in fairly limited areas, primarily in northern and central Afghanistan. In this
sense PRTs may be considered to have been successful within their limited areas of operation.
But the PRTs have not provided an adequate response to the broader problem of insecurity in
Afghanistan, as evidenced by the country’s overall deteriorating security situation. Nor have
they been particularly successful at providing development or humanitarian assistance.
Key Recommendations
The government of Afghanistan is ultimately responsible for the security of the Afghan people.
The Afghan army and police forces operate with varying degrees of effectiveness. In practice,
U.S.-led coalition forces and NATO provide much of the security structure throughout the
country, and particularly in the south and other volatile areas. As the responsibility for
providing security in southern Afghanistan shifts from the U.S.-led coalition to NATO forces,

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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 18, NO. 6(C)11
Human Rights Watch believes that a key measure of their success or failure should be whether
children are able to go to school. This will require a military and policing strategy that directly
addresses how to provide the security necessary for the Afghan government and its
international supporters to develop Afghanistan’s most difficult and unserved areas.
The Afghan government and the international community have not developed adequate policy
responses to the impact of increasing insecurity on development in general, and education in
particular—a particularly sensitive topic because education is often touted as one of the major
successes of the post-Taliban government in Afghanistan.
Unfortunately, the international community and the Afghan government have failed to address
this policy shortcoming in the “Afghanistan Compact,” the blueprint for Afghanistan’s
reconstruction agreed upon after a major international conference in London in January 2006.
While the compact lists security as one of the key components of Afghanistan’s reconstruction,
security is discussed in terms of troop numbers, instead of whether the composition and
mission of these forces is sufficient to improve security for the population at risk. The compact
explicitly links itself with the Afghanistan National Development Strategy, but development
goals—more broadly speaking, the notion of human security—do not appear among the
benchmarks used to measure security. In implementing the compact, the Afghan government
and the international community should ensure that they refocus their security efforts on
fostering a climate conducive to the necessary work of development and reconstruction.
Human Rights Watch urges the Afghan government, NATO, and U.S.-led coalition forces to
implement a coherent, nationwide security policy firmly tethered to the development needs of
the Afghan people. A critical benchmark of success in improving security should be whether
Afghans can exercise their basic rights, starting with access to basic education. Such a
benchmark should be explicitly incorporated into the Afghanistan Compact.
Human Rights Watch also urges NATO and the U.S.-led Coalition to improve coordination
between their PRTs and the government; to improve communication with aid organizations,
and, within six months, to assess whether they have committed resources (troops, materiel, and
development assistance) sufficient to meet set goals.
Finally, given the emergence of schools as a frontline in Afghanistan’s internal military conflict,
Human Rights Watch urges the government and its international supporters to immediately
develop and implement a policy specifically designed to monitor, prevent, and respond to
attacks on teachers, students, and educational facilities.
More detailed recommendations can be found at the end of this report.

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* * *
This report is based on Human Rights Watch research in Afghanistan from May to July 2005,
and from December 2005 to May 2006, as well as research by telephone and electronic mail
from New York. In Afghanistan we visited the provinces of Balkh, Ghazni, Heart, Kabul,
Kapisa, Laghman, Logar, Kandahar, Nangarhar, Paktia, Parwan, and Wardak. We also spoke in
person and by telephone with people from other provinces, including Helmand and Zabul,
which we were unable to visit due to security concerns. During the course of our
investigations, we interviewed more than two hundred individuals, including teachers,
principals, and other school officials; students; staff of Afghan and international NGOs;
government officials responsible for education at the district, provincial, and national levels;
staff of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs; members of the Afghan Independent Human Rights
Commission; police officials; staff of the European Union, World Bank, USAID and its
contractors, and the United Nations, including the U.N. Assistance Mission to Afghanistan, the
U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the United Nations Development Fund for Women
(UNIFEM); officials from NATO; and other experts on education or security in Afghanistan.
Many Afghans asked that their names not be used, fearing retaliation for identifying opposition
groups, including the Taliban and local strongmen, that they believe are responsible for the
attacks on schools documented in this report. “I’m afraid of this attack, this terrorism,” a man
working in Logar told us. “Don’t mention our names in this report. There is no security. We
don’t feel secure in border areas.”6 Similarly, many NGO staff and others working in the field
of education requested anonymity, reflecting both fear of these groups and pressure to
maintain a positive picture of education in Afghanistan in the face of crisis.
All numbers in this report regarding education should be understood as rough estimates
only—data are incomplete and those which are available are often unreliable and conflicting.7
Figures on school enrollment for 2005-2006 are those provided by the Ministry of Education
to Human Rights Watch. The most comprehensive data on factors affecting participation in
education available at the time of writing remains that of two nearly nationwide surveys
conducted in 2003: the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) and the National Risk and
Vulnerability Assessment (NRVA).8 The 2006 briefing paper of Afghan Research & Evaluation
Unit (AREU) entitled “Looking Beyond the School Walls: Household Decision-Making and
School Enrollment in Afghanistan” also provides valuable insights regarding several key areas
of the country.
6
Human Rights Watch interview with NGO education staff member working in Logar and Ghazni, December 20, 2005.
7
Almost everyone Human Rights Watch interviewed involved in education policy cautioned that education statistics in
Afghanistan were unreliable. Although a national Education Management Information System (EMIS) was made
available in 2006, problems with the data’s collection have called into question their accuracy.
8
Even with these surveys, insecurity prevented surveyors from reaching some districts.

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II. Background: Afghanistan Since the Fall of the Taliban
The Taliban’s Ouster, the Bonn Process, and the Afghanistan Compact
It has been more than four years since the United States ousted the Taliban from Kabul in
retaliation for their support for Osama bin Laden and the large-scale murder of civilians in the
United States on September 11, 2001. Much has improved in the lives of Afghans in the past
four years, the most significant improvement perhaps being the ability to hope for a better
future for Afghanistan’s next generation. But the hopes of many Afghans are today beset by a
growing crisis of insecurity.
This crisis was predictable and largely avoidable. The failure of the international community,
led by the United States, to provide adequate financial, political, and security assistance to
Afghanistan despite numerous warnings, created a vacuum of power and authority after the fall
of the Taliban. Where the United States and its allies failed to tread, abusive forces inimical to
the well-being of the Afghan people have rushed in.
The United States and the international community too often favored political expediency over
the more painstaking efforts necessary to create a sustainable system of rule of law and
accountability and in Afghanistan. The Bonn Agreement, which in November 2001 (before the
Taliban had been ousted) established a framework for creating a government in Afghanistan
after the Taliban, focused on political benchmarks such as the selection of a transitional
government, the drafting of a constitution, and holding presidential and parliamentary
elections; it did not include clear guidelines about how these institutions were to operate. The
first clear signal that the international community, and in particular its de facto leader in
Afghanistan, the United States, would tolerate and even support the return of the warlords
came during the Emergency Loya Jirga (“grand council”) convened in June 2002 to form
Afghanistan’s transitional government. Although many warlords had been kept out of the
meeting under the selection provisions, a last minute intervention by Zalmai Khalilzad, then
the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan (and currently the U.S. ambassador to Iraq), and Lakhdar
Brahimi, the special representative of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, gave access to all
the major regional militia commanders. Their intimidating presence immediately distorted the
proceedings and disappointed Afghans hoping for a new beginning.9 The authority and power
of regional warlords and militia commanders grew with every step in the Bonn Process.10
9
Human Rights Watch, “Afghanistan: Loya Jirga Off to Shaky Start,” June 13, 2002; Human Rights Watch,
“Afghanistan: Guarantee Loya Jirga Delegates’ Security,” June 19, 2002; Human Rights Watch, “Afghanistan: Analysis
of New Cabinet: Warlords Emerge from Loya Jirga More Powerful than Ever,” June 20, 2002.
10
Ahmad Rashid, “Afghanistan: On the Brink,” New York Review of Books, June 22, 2006. The United States changed
its policy of relying exclusively on warlords to provide regional security and assistance against the Taliban in the
summer of 2004, when it became apparent that this strategy was undermining the authority of the central government
and causing major resentment among ordinary Afghans. Pursuant to this shift, some of the warlords with the greatest

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The Bonn Process officially ended with the parliamentary elections of September 2005.
Election day itself was relatively peaceful, but it followed a campaign marked by intimidation
(especially against women candidates and voters) and voter discontent, ultimately reflected in a
turnout much lower than expected.11
With the end of the Bonn Process, at the beginning of 2006 the international community
established a new framework for its cooperation with the Afghan government for the next five
years. This new framework––known as the Afghanistan Compact––was unveiled at an
international conference in London in January 2006 with much fanfare and congratulatory
rhetoric: The conference’s official tagline was “Building on Success.” The reality was more
sobering. As U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan was quick to point out in London,
“Afghanistan today remains an insecure environment. Terrorism, extremist violence, the illicit
narcotics industry and the corruption it nurtures, threaten not only continued State building,
but also the fruits of the Bonn Process.”12 Events have since borne out the accuracy of
Annan’s cautionary statement.
Even though Afghanistan met the political markers established by the Bonn Process—drafting
a constitution and electing the president and parliament—the situation in the country is far
from healthy. The Taliban and other armed groups opposing the central government are
resurgent. Parliament is dominated by many of the warlords, criminals, and discredited
politicians responsible for much of Afghanistan’s woes since the Soviet invasion in 1979.
Production and trade of narcotics provide more than half of Afghanistan’s total income and is
a major source of violence, corruption and human rights abuse. Some of the same warlords in
parliament or in key official positions in the government or security forces control the drug
trade. Afghanistan remains one of the world’s least developed countries,13 and President
Karzai’s government remains completely reliant on international financial, political, and military
support.14
regional or ethnic appeal were effectively sidelined, at least temporarily (for instance, Ismail Khan, General Dostum,
Marshall Fahim, and Gul Agha Shirzai). However, hundreds of lower level warlords continue to impose their will on the
populace. Michael Bhatia, Kevin Lanigan, and Philip Wilkinson, Minimal Investments, Minimal Results: The Failure of
Security Policy in Afghanistan, Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, June 2004.
11
“Afghanistan on the Eve of Parliamentary and Provincial Elections,” A Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper,
September 15, 2005, http://hrw.org/backgrounder/asia/afghanistan0905/; and “Campaigning Against Fear: Women’s
Participation in Afghanistan’s 2005 Elections,” A Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper, August 17, 2005,
http://hrw.org/backgrounder/asia/afghanistan0905/. For coverage of the election period and its aftermath, read Human
Rights Watch’s Afghanistan Election Diary, available at http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/afghanistan/blog.htm#blog18.
12
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. The text of his remarks can be found at “In statement to London conference,
Secretary-General says providing assistance to Afghanistan is in interest of ‘entire international community,’”
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/sgsm10331.doc.htm. (retrieved February 12, 2006).
13
UNDP, Human Development Report 2005 (New York: UNDP, 2005),
http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2005/pdf/HDR05_complete.pdf (retrieved April 4, 2006).
14
On President Karzai’s current political difficulties, see Kim Barker, “An Afghan Pressure Cooker,” Chicago Tribune,
June 21, 2006. For general overviews of the situation in Afghanistan, see Barnett Rubin, Afghanistan’s Uncertain

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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 18, NO. 6(C)15
Afghans look to President Hamid Karzai—and beyond him, to his international supporters—
for realistic responses to the country’s problems. The Afghanistan Compact was the
international community’s answer, at least for the next five years.
The Compact identifies three major areas of activity, or “pillars”: security, governance and
human rights, and economic development. The Compact also emphasized cross-cutting efforts
to fight Afghanistan’s burgeoning production and trafficking of heroin. The Compact
established benchmarks for performance in each area, explicitly tied to Afghanistan’s National
Development Strategy (ANDS).15 The Compact also established a Joint Coordination and
Monitoring Board (JCMB) to ensure overall strategic coordination of the implementation of
the Compact, with membership including senior Afghan government officials appointed by the
president and representatives of the international community. The JCMB is co-chaired by a
senior Afghan government official appointed by the president and by the special representative
of the U.N. Secretary-General for Afghanistan.16
The Compact’s preamble identifies security as “a fundamental prerequisite for achieving
stability and development in Afghanistan.”17 Furthermore, the preamble highlights the
inextricable link between security and development and committed the international
community to support efforts to improve security in order to allow essential development to
take place: “Security cannot be provided by military means alone. It requires good governance,
justice and the rule of law, reinforced by reconstruction and development. . . . The Afghan
Government and the international community will create a secure environment by
strengthening Afghan institutions to meet the security needs of the country in a fiscally
sustainable manner.”18
Despite identifying the important relationship between security and development, the security
benchmarks used in the Compact referred solely to military and policing, and focused on the
Transition from Turmoil to Normalcy, Council on Foreign Relations, March 2006; and Kenneth Katzman, Afghanistan:
Post-War Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy, Congressional Research Service, updated May 4, 2006.
15
Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Afghan National Development Strategy: An Interim Strategy for Security,
Governance, Economic Growth & Poverty Reduction, 1384 (2005-2006), http://www.ands.gov.af/. As Barnett Rubin has
pointed out, the Compact established accountability for the Afghan government, but not for donors, instead referring
vaguely to “the international community.” Rubin, “Afghanistan’s Uncertain Transition…, p. 1.
16
For information about the Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board, see: www.ands.gov.af/ands/jcmb.
17
“The Afghanistan Compact,” The London Conference on Afghanistan, January 31-February 1, 2006, “Security,” p. 3.
18
Ibid. The reference to strengthening Afghan security institutions in a “fiscally responsible manner” is tacit recognition
of the absolute failure of the plan to create a 70,000-strong Afghan army. This plan rejected advice from security and
development experts who questioned why Afghanistan needed to focus on creating an army when most of its threats
were internal and required better police work. Ultimately, reality scuttled the rhetoric: it proved impossible to train and
retain so many troops so quickly, and the cost of maintaining such an army was prohibitive and unbearable by
Afghanistan’s shattered economy. See Report of the Panel of United Nations Peace Operations, August 21, 2000
United Nations, Report on the Panel of United Nations Peace Operations, U.N. Doc. A/55/305.S/2000/809 (New York:
United Nations Publications, 2000). For an argument in favor of the 70,000-strong Afghan army, see Vance Serchuk,
“Don’t Undercut the Afghan Army,” Washington Post, June 2, 2006.

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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 18, NO. 6(C) 16
size of the different forces, not on their actual capacity to provide security.19 The ability to
carry out the development that is earlier recognized as a “fundamental prerequisite” to security
do not appear among these benchmarks.
Similarly, the Compact’s benchmarks for development do not refer at all to the fact that, as was
obvious while the Compact was being drafted in late 2005, security conditions precluded
development and reconstruction in many areas of the country. For instance, the ambitious
benchmarks for primary, secondary, and higher education, set out that by 2010:
Net enrolment in primary school for girls and boys will be at least 60% and
75% respectively; . . . female teachers will be increased by 50%; enrolment of
students to universities will be 100,000 with at least 35% female students; and
the curriculum in Afghanistan's public universities will be revised to meet the
development needs of the country and private sector growth.20
There was no recognition that in many parts of Afghanistan, schools have become a frontline
in the military conflict between the Afghan government and the armed opposition, as
documented in this report. These attacks signal a major breakdown in security and in the ability
of the central government and its international supporters to provide for the basic needs of the
Afghan people and meet the goals established in the Afghanistan Compact.
19
“The Afghanistan Compact,” The London Conference on Afghanistan, annex 1, p. 10.
20
Ibid.

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The source and type of insecurity varies across the country, and can be distinguished between
the north and south and between urban and rural areas. Insecurity is also perceived differently
by men and women and by the local population and foreign aid workers and contractors.
Wherever it happens and whoever causes it, the impact of insecurity is largely the same: it
keeps Afghans from enjoying their most basic rights as human beings, rights such as the right
to life, the rights to freedom of association and assembly, the right to obtain health care, the
right to work and to participate in public life, and the right to education.
As explained in Afghanistan’s 2004 National Human Development Report, “[t]raditional
security threats to the people of Afghanistan are both direct (violence, killings, etc.) and
indirect. The latter emerge from a weakened state capacity and challenges to the legitimacy of
institutions outside the capital, or from the withdrawal of international aid agencies from
dangerous but needy zones.”21 In much of Afghanistan, the basic difficulties of living in a war-
shattered, impoverished country gripped by draught and chronic food shortages aggravate the
insecurity. As set out in more detail below, insecurity has limited the work of the government
and of aid agencies in many areas of the south and southeast, exacerbating the insecurity
Afghans in these areas experience.
Direct insecurity increased sharply in Afghanistan in 2005 and early 2006. The first half of 2006
(January to June) witnessed the greatest number of conflict-related deaths in Afghanistan since
the fall of the Taliban, with nearly 1,000 people, both civilians and combatants, killed in
conflict-related incidents in the first six months of the year.22 This fatality rate is markedly
higher than the previous rate of 1,600 people who died in conflict-related violence in 2005,
according to the Afghan NGO Security Office (ANSO). 23 For the international community in
Afghanistan, this has included attacks on both foreign militaries (NATO and U.S.-led coalition
forces) and the humanitarian aid workers whose efforts are essential for maintaining and
improving the lives of the Afghan people. For aid workers, 2006 has been a particularly bloody
year, with 24 killed as of June 20, 2006.24
This marks a serious escalation in the risk facing aid
workers compared with the previous year, when thirty-one aid workers were killed—itself a
significant increase compared to twenty-four aid workers killed in 2004 and twelve in 2003,
according to ANSO.25 A May 2005 report by CARE and ANSO had already concluded that
“though comparative statistics are not readily available, the NGO fatality rate in Afghanistan is
21
UNDP, Afghanistan, National Human Development Report 2004, Security with a Human Face: Challenges and
Responsibilities, 2004, sec. 3.2.
22
“Coalition: More than 45 Insurgents Killed in Afghanistan,” Associated Press, June 17, 2006.
23
“Afghanistan: Year in Review 2005—Fragile progress, insecurity remains,” IRIN, January 11, 2006.
24
E-mail from ANSO to Human Rights Watch, June 20, 2006.
25
Ibid. 2005 casualty figures for aid workers were cited by Scott Baldauf, “Mounting concern over Afghanistan; Cartoon
protests are part of an impatience with the problems of drugs, jobs, corruption,” The Christian Science Monitor,
February 14, 2006 (citing ANSO).

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believed to be higher than in almost any other conflict or post-conflict setting.”26
Similarly, Afghan and international military forces have suffered some of their heaviest
casualties in 2006. As of June 15, 2006, 300 U.S. troops had died in Afghanistan, as well as
eighty-two from other countries27; of this total, forty-seven U.S. troops died in 2006, along
with seventeen from other countries.28 This trend continues from 2005, when ninety-one U.S.
troops died in combat and from accidents in 2005, more than double the total for the previous
year.29
Geographically, the sources of insecurity can be distinguished along a line dividing Afghanistan
along a gentle gradient from the southwest to the northeast and passing directly through
Kabul. North of this line, insecurity largely reflects the activity of narcotics networks and the
growing authority and impunity of regional military commanders—warlords—who have
returned and entrenched themselves by subverting the political process, most notably during
parliamentary elections in September 2005.30 Many regional commanders were able to use
intimidation and fraud to place themselves or their proxies in the national parliament or the
local shuras, or provincial councils, thus adding political legitimacy to their rule of the gun and
the financial independence many of them enjoy due to the drug trade.31 Alarmingly, groups
allied with the Taliban and with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar have also begun operating more openly
in the north, even in areas quite close to Kabul.
For now, it is in the interest of regional power-holders in the north to minimize blatant use of
force in confronting one another (or the central government). While this state of affairs has
allowed the residents of northern and western Afghanistan some measure of respite, their sense
of insecurity—their fear that any gains they make could be taken away arbitrarily—remains
high.32 While factional fighting and overt violence has decreased in areas outside the south and
southeast, insecurity remains high because of the near absolute impunity with which regional
strongmen are able to act. The rule of law and the justice system remain very weak in
Afghanistan, so it is not enough for incidents of actual violence to decrease for the sense of
insecurity to lessen.33 The problem of impunity must first be addressed.
26
“NGO Insecurity in Afghanistan,” ANSO and CARE, May 2005, available at
http://www.care.org/newsroom/specialreports/afghanistan/20050505_ansocare.pdf.
27
“Enduring Freedom Casualties,” CNN.com, available at http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2004/oef.casualties/
(retrieved June 15, 2006).
28
Annual breakdown of the number of casualties in Afghanistan are availabe at the website
http://www.icasualties.org/oef/.
29
Ibid.
30
See “Campaigning Against Fear: Women’s Participation in Afghanistan’s 2005 Elections,” A Human Rights Watch
Briefing Paper.
31
Ibid.
32
Human Rights Watch interview with Christian Willach, operations coordinator, ANSO, Kabul, December 4, 2005.
33
Human Rights Watch interview, Ahmad Nader Nadery, Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission,
commissioner for rule of law and justice sector, Kabul, December 20, 2005.

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South of the southwest-northeast line described above, all three sources of direct insecurity
torment ordinary Afghans. Warlords in southern and southeastern Afghanistan have assumed
many senior government and security posts. After the Taliban were overthrown, many
warlords took on the mantle of government authority by rebranding themselves as security
forces without changing how they operate.34
Many observers, including the United Nations, the United States, and NATO, consider the
narcotics trade as the gravest threat to the security of Afghanistan.35 The illicit drug trade
accounts for an estimated U.S.$2.7 billion annually, surpassing the government’s official
budget, and equaling nearly 40 percent of the country’s legal gross domestic product.36 As
Barnett Rubin has put it, “the livelihoods of the people of this impoverished, devastated
country are more dependent on illegal narcotics than any other country in the world.”37
However, Rubin points out that according to U.N. estimates nearly 80 percent of this income
goes not to farmers, but to traffickers and heroin processors.38
Criminal gangs involved in the drug trade are a major source of violence and insecurity in
Afghanistan, as their interests seem to transcend any particular ideology and focus on
maintaining their ability to operate without any inhibitions or monitoring from the government
or its international allies. Despite over U.S.$500 million dollars dedicated to the counter-
narcotics campaign by the United States and the United Kingdom, drug production raged out
of control in 2005, and there are strong indications that it will reach record highs in 2006.39
This vast criminal enterprise undermines the rule of law, challenges the authority of the central
government, and provides easy and massive funding for military groups operating
independently of the central government.40
Both the insurgents and the regional warlords assuming government authority have benefited
from Afghanistan’s booming drug trade and the criminal networks it has spawned—raising
fears that Afghanistan is turning into a narco-state.41 There is a very strong belief among
Afghans and outside observers that senior government officials, including police chiefs, are
34
Wahidullah Amani, “Growing Sense of Insecurity,” Institute for War & Peace Reporting, December 23, 2005.
35
See, for instance, Richard Holbrooke, “Afghanistan: The Long Road Ahead,” The Washington Post, April 2, 2006. A
clear indication of the alarms raised by Afghanistan’s burgeoning drug production and trade is the prominence with
which the topic is addressed in the Afghanistan Compact, where it is addressed as the only issue cutting across all
other topics, such as security, rule of law, and economic development.
36
U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghanistan Opium Survey 2005, November 4, 2005.
37
Rubin, Afghanistan’s Uncertain Transition … , p.31.
38
Ibid.
39
U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghanistan Opium Survey 2005. Although the area of land under poppy cultivation
dropped by 20 percent in 2005, actual production dropped only four percent, indicating a bigger harvest due to more
rain and better farming methods. Early indications are that poppy cultivation and drug production are already even
higher in 2006.
40
Katzman, Afghanistan: Post-War Governance, p.14.
41
“Afghanistan: Year in Review 2005—Fragile progress, insecurity remains,” IRIN.

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involved in the drug trade.42 Even the Taliban, who had effectively stamped out poppy
cultivation during their reign, are now cooperating with criminal networks and apparently using
it to finance their military and political activity.
Another factor complicating the security situation is interference by Afghanistan’s neighbors.
Afghanistan’s Central Asian neighbors—Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan—each have
significant ethnic and economic interests in Afghanistan, while Iran and Pakistan have
historically maintained unofficial zones of influence across their respective borders. Afghans
throughout the country, and particularly in the south and southeast, in interviews with Human
Rights Watch in December 2005, were adamant in blaming Pakistan for directly controlling, or
at least sheltering, the forces responsible for destabilizing southern and southeastern
Afghanistan.43
The proximity of Pakistan and its tribal areas (typically described as ungovernable or lawless) is
one reason why insecurity in Afghanistan is markedly higher in the country’s southern and
southeastern areas. It is in these areas where the Taliban and warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
have historically centered their operations. Both groups are predominantly Pashtun and derive
their strength from Pashtun tribes straddling the Afghan-Pakistani border. U.S.-led coalition
forces have concentrated their anti-Taliban activity and the search for Al Qaeda operatives in
this area, at times engaging in heavy clashes with opposition forces.
Nearly a third of Afghanistan’s population lives in the country’s southern and southeastern
provinces. The south is the heartland of Afghanistan’s Pashtun community and the cradle of
the Taliban movement.44 By all accounts and benchmarks, security has deteriorated sharply in
this area over the past two years.45 Opposition forces and well-armed criminal gangs operate
42
Scott Baldauf, “Inside the Afghan drug trade,” The Christian Science Monitor, June 12, 2006. See also Ahmed
Rashid, “Afghanistan: Taleban’s Second Coming,” BBCNews, June 2, 2006,
HTTP://NEWS.BBC.CO.UK/2/HI/SOUTH_ASIA/5029190.STM (retrieved June 16, 2006).
43
Many U.S. analysts, as well as Afghans, blamed Pakistan for nurturing, if not directly controlling, the growing
insurgency in the south. See, for instance, Seth Jones, “The Danger Next Door,” The New York Times, September 23,
2005. Afghan’s love-hate relationship with Pakistan was at a particularly low point in the winter of 2005-2006, as anti-
Pakistan protests erupted across the country in response to the rash of suicide bombings. For instance, the deadliest of
these attacks, which killed twenty-two spectators at a wrestling match on the border town of Spin Boldak in Kandahar
province, sparked anti-Pakistan and anti-Taliban riots across Afghanistan. “Protestors in Ghazni blame Pakistan for
supporting terrorists,” Pajhwok Afghan News, January 21, 2006; “Afghan demonstrators call for punishment of deadly
bombers,” Xinhua News Agency, January 18, 2005.
44
See Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001).
45
Human Rights Watch interview with Haji Qadir Noorzai, Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission
Kandahar director, Kandahar, December 8, 2005. Noorzai explained that there had been a decrease in the number of
complaints received from his office’s area of operations—not because of improvements in security, but rather because
the situation had grown so bad that it impeded proper reporting and investigation. “We’ve sent our delegations there in
unmarked cars because of insecurity. Earlier we were getting lots of complaints, now less, not because there are less
problems, but because people don’t complain because we can’t do anything about it, we’re not that strong and the
government isn’t that strong,” he told us.

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extensively in this area, and the population receives little succor from the regional warlords
nominally operating under government authority.
In past years, opposition attacks decreased markedly during the winter months, when cold
weather hampered movement, particularly across the mountainous border to Pakistan. In 2006,
the attacks have continued at an ever higher pace and intensity. As one tribal elder from
Helmand province told Human Rights Watch:
The people have no rule of law, it’s the rule of the gun. The Taliban will kill
you, or the government will kill you—one is worse than the other. There is
absolute oppression and terror—there is no peace here. Might is right, the gun
rules.
After the fall of the Taliban, we were happy because the United States saved us
from terrorism, we thought it would help us with aid. We had a good memory
because the U.S. had helped [us] in the 1970s. Unfortunately, the situation is
the reverse of what we hoped. Our people’s hopes have turned to dust. This is
because of poor management, the presence of the commanders who have been
put in charge by the government.46
In 2004, a more robust and aggressive strategy by the coalition managed to push the opposition
forces out of some of these areas, prompting the U.S. and Afghan governments to pronounce
(again) that the Taliban were on the verge of defeat.47 But in 2005, Taliban and other
opposition forces changed tactics, away from direct confrontations and instead began focusing
on civilians and civilian institutions, such as teachers, low-level bureaucrats, schools, and aid
workers, an approach similar to that used by anti-U.S. forces in Iraq.48 At least nine clerics were
killed in Afghanistan in 2005.49
46
Human Rights Watch interview with Haji Dr. Akhundzada, tribal elder from Kojaki district, northern Helmand province,
Kandahar, December 7, 2005.
47
President Bush and President Karzai appeared at a joint press conference in June 2004 at the White House, during
which President Bush declared: “Three years ago, the Taliban had granted Osama bin Laden and his terrorist al Qaeda
organization a safe refuge. Today, the Taliban has been deposed, al Qaeda is in hiding, and coalition forces continue to
hunt down the remnants and holdouts. Coalition forces, including many brave Afghans, have brought America,
Afghanistan and the free world its first victory in the war on terror,” The White House, “President Bush Meets with
President Karzai of Afghanistan,” June 15, 2004, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/
2004/06/20040615-4.html, retrieved on June 17, 2006. Similar sentiments came from General James Jones, NATO’s
top military official at the time, who said during an interview in Kabul in August 2004, "In terms of radical Islamic
fundamentalism, Al-Qaeda and [the] Taliban reasserting themselves in this country -- it's over.” Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty, “Afghanistan: NATO's Top General Says Taliban Defeated,” August 13, 2004, available at
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/08/252de1be-a326-4b7f-b8f1-cf52c8ab7d2e.html, retrieved on June 17, 2006.
48
Human Rights Watch interview with Christian Willach, operations coordinator, ANSO, Kabul, December 4, 2005. It is
unclear whether this shift in tactics reflected direct interchange between Iraqi and Afghan insurgent groups, or simply
came about as Afghans emulated the Iraqi insurgents’ effective methods of disrupting government control and

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A particularly alarming development was the introduction of the previously uncommon tactic
of suicide bombings. As one veteran Western observer of security conditions in Afghanistan
explained, “Some of the new incidents are more serious, but overall incidents have not
increased. But there is a new quality: terrorism against soft targets, suicide bombs in Kabul.
There are more areas where the Taliban are active.”50 Most of these attacks have taken place in
southern Afghanistan, with nearly twenty in Kandahar province alone.51 A self-described
spokesman for the Taliban, Mohammed Hanif, boasted to the Christian Science Monitor in
February 2006: “I confirm that there are 200 to 250 fidayeen [dedicated soldiers] who are
prepared to carry out suicide attacks, and the number is increasing day by day.”52
It is unclear if this shift in tactics represents any real growth in the strength or popularity of the
insurgency. But if the perpetrators of these attacks intended to intimidate the civilian
population and disrupt the reconstruction and development process, they have by and large
succeeded. Nearly all of the civilians we spoke with say they feel even more threatened than
before, and they now express fear about moving in previously safe zones, such as city centers,
which have become susceptible to attacks and bombings. A tribal elder from Khojaki district in
northern Helmand province explained:
The Talibs target anyone working with the government. Every night there is
the government of the Talibs. By day, the government can send maybe one or
two motorcycles, that’s all. It was better before the parliamentary elections [in
September 2005].53
Education in Afghanistan and its Importance for Development
Five years ago, Afghanistan was the world’s most distressing example of the failure to provide
children with an education. The Taliban denied nearly all girls the right to attend school, and
insecurity, poverty, and the abysmal quality of remaining schools left many boys without an
increasing chaos. U.S. and Afghan authorities have claimed that they have evidence of direct links between the two
groups, while the Afghan groups claim they are relying on their own resources.
49
The nine clerics were: Maulavi Abdullah Fayaz, Maulavi Mohammed Musbah, Maulavi Saleh Mohammed, Malik
Agha, Mullah Abdullah Malang, Mullah Amir Mohammed Akhund, Maulavi Mohammed Khan, Maulavi Mohammad Gul,
Maulavi Noor Ahmad. See “Afghanistan on the Eve of Parliamentary and Provincial Elections,” A Human Rights Watch
Briefing Paper; “Karzai condemns clerics’ killing,” Pajhwok Afghan News, October 18, 2005.
50
Human Rights Watch interview with long-time resident Western expert, Kabul, December 4, 2005.
51
Suicide bombings have not been not limited to the south, but have also occurred in Kabul as well as in the north,
where the city of Mazar-e Sharif witnessed two suicide bombings in the latter half of 2005 and German ISAF troops
were attacked in Kunduz in 2006. “Escalating Violence Puts German Peacekeepers on Edge,” Deutsche Welle, May 31,
2006, http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2036120,00.html (retrieved June 17, 2006). For an incomplete list of
suicide bombings in Afghanistan in 2005, see “Chronology of Major Suicide Attacks,” Associated Press, January 20,
2006; Abdul Waheed Wafa and Carlotta Gall, “3 Afghan Demonstrators Die in Clash With NATO Troops,” The New York
Times, February 8, 2006.
52
Scott Baldauf, “Taliban Turn to Suicide Attacks,” The Christian Science Monitor, February 3, 2006.
53
Human Rights Watch interview with Haji Dr. Akhundzada, tribal elder from Kojaki district, northern Helmand province,
Kandahar, December 7, 2005.

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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOL. 18, NO. 6(C) 24
education as well. Aside from refugees educated abroad and a miniscule number of girls able to
attend clandestine home schools, the misogynistic rule of the Taliban left an entire generation
of girls and young women illiterate.54
However, opposition to non-madrassa based, so-called modern, education and to girls’
participation predates the Taliban, when it first captured international attention. Education for
girls was historically nearly non-existent in rural Afghanistan and almost exclusively confined to
the capital. In 1919 King Amanullah seized the Afghan throne and began a rapid expansion of
the country’s secular education system, directly threatening the clergy’s centuries-old monopoly
on traditional madrassa education for boys. Amanullah’s experiment with a secular and modern
education system, particularly as it addressed the education of girls, aroused protest from
country’s religious establishment, who eventually supported the king’s overthrow. With
Amanullah’s ouster, educational reforms were significantly slowed and in some cases reversed.
Nevertheless, over the course of the twentieth century, and in particular during King
Mohammed Zahir’s long reign between 1933 and 1973, Afghanistan’s education system
steadily expanded, while continuing to be influenced by demands from the country’s
conservative culture and religious authorities.55
After the Communist coup d’etat of 1978, the education system was dramatically revamped to
reflect the governing ideology. The curriculum downgraded the importance of religion and
emphasized Marxist-Leninism. The Communist’s educational policies set off a serious
backlash, as the religious establishment, assisted by the militant Islamic groups, cast schools as
centers for Communist Party activity.56 Schools became one of the first military targets for the
mujahedin and the long war against the Soviet occupation.57
With the fall of the Communist government in 1992, the country was divided among warring
factions, many of them religiously-inspired mujahedin groups ideologically opposed to modern
education and to educating girls. Millions of Afghans fled the country, particularly the
educated. Of the schools not destroyed by war, many were shuttered because of insecurity, the
lack of teachers and teaching material, or simply poverty.
54
Human Rights Watch, Humanity Denied: Systematic Violations of Women’s Rights in Afghanistan, vol. 13, no. 5,
October 2001.
55
Barnett R. Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System, 2nd
ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), p. 69.
56
S. B. Ekanayake, Education in the Doldrums: Afghan Tragedy, (Peshawar: UNESCO, 2000), p. 36.
57
Ibid.

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Education under the Taliban went from wretched to worse. The Taliban focused solely on
religious studies for boys and denied nearly all girls the right to attend school. 58 The Afghan
government and its foreign supporters often cite the rehabilitation of the Afghan school
system and the number of children in school as one of the chief successes of the international
effort in Afghanistan.59 Since 2001, the participation of children and adults in education has
improved dramatically and, as explained below, there is great demand. Afghanistan has one of
the youngest populations on the planet—although exact numbers do not exist, an estimated 57
percent of the population is under the age of eighteen.60
Unexpectedly large numbers showed
up when schools reopened in 2002, and enrollments have increased every year since, with the
Ministry of Education reporting that 5.2 million students were enrolled in grades one through
twelve in 2005.61 This includes, they told us, an estimated 1.82-1.95 million girls and women.62
An additional 55,500-57,000 people, including 4,000-5,000 girls and women, were enrolled in
vocational, Islamic, and teacher education programs, and 1.24 million people were enrolled in
non-formal education.63 These numbers represent a remarkable improvement from the Taliban
era. Indeed, more Afghan children are in school today than at any other period in
Afghanistan’s history.64
Despite these improvements, the situation is far from what it could or should have been,
particularly for girls. The Ministry of Education estimates that 40 percent of children aged six
to eighteen, including the majority of primary school-age girls, were still out of school in 2005.
Older girls have particularly low rates of enrollment: at the secondary level, just 24 percent of
58
The gross enrollment ratio in primary school for 2000/2001 was 29 percent for males and less than 1 percent for
females (down from 4 percent the previous year). UNESCO, “Gross and New Enrollment Ratios, Primary,”
http://stats.uis.unesco.org/TableViewer/tableView.aspx?ReportId=51, retrieved February 9, 2006.
59
See, for example, most recently comments made by Afghan and other government officials at the opening of the
London Conference unveiling the Afghanistan Compact on January 31, 2006. President Karzai said: “Where four years
ago, education was in a state of total collapse, today more than six million girls and boys are attending schools.” Prime
Minister Tony Blair of the U.K. said: “There are millions of children back at school, many of them girls denied the chance
to be educated during the period of the Taliban’s rule.” Both speeches are available at the website of the British Foreign
and Commonwealth Office, available at http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front/
TextOnly?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page&cid=1136906260508&to=true, retrieved on June 17,
2006. As early as June 2004, at a meeting in the White House, President Bush told President Karzai: Afghanistan and
America are working together to print millions of new textbooks and to build modern schools in every Afghan province.
Girls, as well as boys, are going to school, and they are studying under a new curriculum that promotes religious and
ethnic tolerance.” President Karzai responded by saying: “We are sending today five million children to school. Almost
half of those children are girls.” The White House, “President Bush Meets with President Karzai of Afghanistan,” June
15, 2004, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/ 2004/06/20040615-4.html, retrieved on June 17, 2006.
60
Data available in Afghanistan’s Second Report on the Millenium Development Goals, available at
http://www.undg.org/documents/6666-Afghanistan_Second_MDG_Report.pdf.
61
Human Rights Watch interview with Mohammed Azim Karbalai, Director, Planning Department, Ministry of Education,
Kabul, March 11, 2006.
62
Ibid.
63
Ibid.
64
For information on student enrollment in Afghanistan since 1970, see UNESCO data available at
http://devdata.worldbank.org/edstats/cd5.asp.

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students were girls in 2005;65 and the gross enrollment rate for girls in secondary education was
only 5 percent in 2004, compared with 20 percent for boys.66 In six of Afghanistan’s then
thirty-four provinces, girls made up 20 percent or less of the students officially enrolled in
school in 2004-2005.67 Even at the primary level, girls are not catching up: the gap in primary
enrollment between boys and girls has remained more or less constant despite overall increases
in enrollment.68
Enrollment also has varied tremendously by province and between urban and rural areas.69
Many children in rural areas have no access to schools at all. Seventy-one percent of the
population over age fifteen—including 86 percent of women—cannot read and write, one of
the highest rates of illiteracy in the world.70
Moreover, not all enrolled children actually attend school or attend regularly. The Ministry of
Education told Human Rights Watch that 10-13 percent of children drop out each year,71 but
true numbers may be far higher: the 2003 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) found
seven provinces in which more than 20 percent of girls enrolled in school had not attended at
all in the last three days.72 “Enrollment data is from the beginning of year so it does not reflect
kids who drop out during the year,” explained senior staff of an NGO that runs education
65
Human Rights Watch interview with Mohammed Azim Karbalai, Director of Planning Department, Ministry of
Education, Kabul, March 11, 2006. Compare Ministry of Education, Education Management Information System (draft),
2004-2005 (in 2004-2005, girls made up 20 percent of secondary students).
66
World Bank, “GenderStats: Database of Gender Statistics.”
67
Ministry of Education, Education Management Information System (draft), 2004-2005. These provinces were
Kandahar, Kapisa, Khost, Helmand, Paktika, Zabul. It should be noted that this figure is not the percentage of school-
age girls enrolled in the area.
68
There were 1.5 million girls and 3 million boys enrolled in primary school in 2004-2005. Human Rights Watch
interview with Mohammed Azim Karbalai, Director, Planning Department, Ministry of Education, Kabul, March 11, 2006.
See also Millennium Development Goals Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Country Report 2005: Vision 2020, pp. 31, 42;
and C. Naumann, Compilation of Some Basic School Statistics, WFP CO AFG, Citing UNICEF RALS (Rapid
Assessment of Learning Spaces), 2003/4 data, p. 4 (noting the 1:2 ratio of girls to boys in primary school).
69
Human Rights Watch interview with Mohammed Azim Karbalai, Director, Planning Department, Ministry of Education,
Kabul, March 11, 2006; and UNICEF, “On eve of new Afghan school year, UNICEF warns of continued threat facing
women and children,” March 21, 2006.
70
Central Statistics Office, Afghan Transitional Authority; UNICEF, “Afghanistan—Progress of Provinces, Multiple
Indicator Cluster Survey 2003, May 2004. In rural areas, 91.9 percent of women and 63.9 percent of men are illiterate,
while in many villages 95 to 100 percent of women cannot read and write. Ibid. By comparison, Afghanistan falls far
below the average literacy rate of low-income countries (U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), “Afghanistan
Reconstruction: Despite Some Progress, Deteriorating Security and Other Obstacles Continue to Threaten
Achievement of U.S. Goals,” Report to Congressional Committees, July 2005, p. 7), below the average of other
countries in the region, and below the average of the least developed countries (UNDP, Human Development Report
2005, p. 261.
71
Human Rights Watch interview with Mohammed Azim Karbalai, Director, Planning Department, Ministry of Education,
Kabul, March 11, 2006.
72
These provinces were: Balkh, Faryab, Jawzjan, Lagman, Nimroz, Samangan, and Sar-e Pol. Notably—perhaps
incredibly—Badghis, Kandahar rural, and Zabul reported that 100 percent of girls enrolled in school had attended all
three of the last three days. Central Statistics Office, UNICEF, “Days Attended in Last 3 School-days (among enrolled),”
Afghanistan—Progress of Provinces, Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2003.

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programs in many parts of Afghanistan.73 Staff of the Afghan Independent Human Rights
Commission offered a specific example: “Traveling around, we’ve seen that the Ministry of
Education’s numbers of kids in school are not accurate in areas of Paktika.”74
As low as they are, enrollment rates appear to have reached a plateau. The Ministry of
Education’s director of planning told Human Rights Watch that the ministry expects the total
number of students to remain unchanged from the 2005-2006 to the 2006-2007 school years
and for new enrollments to slow in 2008 as refugee returns level off.75
Reconstruction of the country’s education infrastructure has nevertheless been unable to keep
pace with demand. According to the Ministry of Education, there were 8,590 schools in
Afghanistan in 2004-2005, of which 2,984 had a dedicated school building, 2,740 were
“buildingless” (held in tents or in open air); and the remainder were held in mosques or rented
rooms and buildings.76
Of these schools, far fewer admit girls than admit boys. Schools are officially designed as either
a boys’ school or girls’ school, with 19 percent of schools designated as girls’ schools.77
Twenty-nine percent of Afghanistan’s 415 educational districts have no designated girls’ school
at all.78 Some schools may admit students of the opposite sex, however: according to Ministry
of Education figures, about one third of the country’s schools had students of both sexes
enrolled in 2004-2005.79 In total, the ministry’s data indicate that 49 percent of Afghanistan’s
schools admitted girls at some level, compared with 86 percent of schools that admitted boys.80
73
Human Rights Watch interview with NGO staff, Kabul, December 4, 2005.
74
Human Rights Watch interview with Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission incident investigator,
Gardez, December 6, 2005.
75
Human Rights Watch interview with Mohammed Azim Karbalai, Director, Planning Department, Ministry of Education,
Kabul, March 11, 2006.
76
Ministry of Education, Education Management Information System (draft), 2004-2005; Human Rights Watch interview
with Mohammeed Azim Karbalai, Director, Planning Department, Ministry of Education, Kabul, March 11, 2006. Director
Karbalai told Human Rights Watch that some 2,000 new schools were supposed to be built in 2006-2007. The head of
Herat’s education department, Mohammadin Fahim, told journalists that 40 percent of students in Herat would study in
tents in 2006. “Lack of Teachers, Classrooms Hamper Education in West Afghanistan,” Seda-ye Jawan Radio, Herat,
BBC Monitoring South Asia, March 14, 2006, 1030 GMT.
77
Ministry of Education, Education Management Information System (draft), 2004-2005.
78
Ibid. A province is divided into districts; educational districts often, but not always, correspond with administrative
districts.
79
Ibid.
80
Draft data for 2004-2005 from the Ministry of Education lists 1,354 schools as “female” and 4,361 as “male.” An
additional 262 are female schools with male students, and 2,560 are male schools with female students. Only 10
percent of educational district had no girls officially enrolled in school in 2004-2005. Ibid.

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According to the head of the Ministry of Education’s planning department, ministry
regulations allow co-education up to grade three and, in remote areas, grade nine.81 But practice
varies widely. For example, a teacher in Balkh province told Human Rights Watch that he did
not know whether strict separation of girls and boys “is law but this is certainly a policy. It was
not the case in the past. It only started with the mujahedin regime [in 1992]. It is not applied in
private schools.”82
Demand for separation also comes from local residents.83 Some communities refuse even to
allow girls to attend a school that ever has boys in it; others allow girls to go in a separate shift
or allow very young girls to attend classes with boys.
Official figures may over-represent the number of functioning girls’ schools. (As explained
below, the number of functioning boys’ schools is also likely overstated because of closures
following attacks.) Human Rights Watch received information about two instances of new girls’
schools not being used for their intended purpose. Woranga Safi, the then-director of secondary
education department at the Ministry of Education, described an incident in Takhar province
that she said was a typical example of provinces failing to give attention to female education:
A brand new school had been built according to a plan established by the
Ministry of Education in Kabul in cooperation with the provincial
administration. It was a school dedicated for girls’ education. It worked for a
few days. It was then “hijacked” by local authorities and turned into a school
for boys. The girls could not return to the school84
In Kapisa province, Human Rights Watch visited a newly-built girls’ school that police had
taken over for their own use because girls from the local community did not attend it.85
Secondary education, for which girls and boy are separated, is far less available to girls than to
boys, and Human Rights Watch heard reports of certain provinces having no secondary
schools for girls at all. However, neither the Ministry of Education nor UNICEF were able to
provide us with a listing of provinces without girls’ secondary schools. Human Rights Watch
81
Human Rights Watch interviews with Mohammed Azim Karbalai, Director of Planning Department, Ministry of
Education, Kabul, December 15, 2005, and March 11, 2006.
82
Human Rights Watch interview with teacher, Mazar-e Sharif, May 19, 2005.
83
According to the director of Qala-e Wazir school in Bagrami district, Kabul province: “People in the community
demand separate schools. It is important to respect the tradition.” Human Rights Watch interview, Bagrami district,
Kabul, May 10, 2005.
84
Human Rights Watch interview with Woranga Safi, Director of Secondary Education, Ministry of Education, Kabul,
May 12, 2005.
85
Human Rights Watch interview with Abdul Halim Khan, Tagab District Police Chief, Tagab District, Kapisa, May 7,
2006.

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visited a girls’ secondary school in Paktia, one of the provinces that does. According to the
school’s principal, it was the only school in the province offering education to girls grade eight
or higher, and fifty-four girls were enrolled in these grades, including sixteen in class ten. No
girls were enrolled in grades eleven or twelve in 2005-2006.86
The Structure of Afghanistan’s School System
Under Afghanistan’s Constitution, education is compulsory and free from grades one through nine
and free up to the undergraduate level of university.87 Children begin grade one at age six or seven.
Primary education consists of grades one through six, junior (or middle) secondary education
grades seven through nine, and upper secondary education grades ten through twelve. Formal
education options also include vocational education and teacher education (grades ten through
fourteen) and Islamic education (grades seven through fourteen).
In “cold” areas, the school year begins after the Persian New Year in March; in “hot” areas, the
school year begins in September. The school year usually lasts nine months, divided into two
semesters, with a two-and-a-half month break at the end of the academic year. The school day is
short, typically lasting from three to three-and-a-half hours, which allows teachers to work at other
jobs or schools to operate multiple shifts.
In addition to formal schools run by the Ministry of Education, other forms of education are
available in certain areas. This includes literacy programs, community-based schools, and
accelerated learning programs which typically target, but are not limited to, girls who cannot go to a
regular school. Accelerated learning programs educate children who have missed some years of
school but seek to rejoin the formal education system by studying the formal curriculum at an
accelerated pace. These programs may be administered by NGOs or the government, with the
largest being the USAID-funded Afghanistan Funded Primary Education Program (APEP),
implemented primarily through Afghan NGOs.
International donors have long played a role in education in Afghanistan, and, since the fall of the
Taliban, education has been almost completely dependent on international support, provided
directly to the government or to private contractors and NGOs. The largest international donors
for education in Afghanistan are the United States (via USAID) and the World Bank. Other donors
include Denmark, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, UNESCO, and
UNICEF. Donor money has gone to school construction and rehabilitation, textbook printing and
distribution, teacher training, and school equipment such as tents, blackboards, and carpets.
According to the Agency Coordinating Body For Afghan Relief (ACBAR), since 2002, NGOs have
assisted in repairing or constructing around 3,000 school buildings and in training 27,500 teachers.88
In light of the very high numbers of children outside the education system, the focus of donors and
the Ministry of Education has been on primary education largely to the exclusion of secondary.
86
Human Rights Watch interview with high school principal, Gardez, December 6, 2005.
87
Information in this section draws from Human Rights Watch’s interviews with staff of the Ministry of Education and the
following sources: Jeaniene Spink, Afghanistan Research & Evaluation Unit (AREU), “Afghanistan Teacher Education
Project (TEP) Situational Analysis: Teacher Education and Professional Development in Afghanistan,” August 2004;
Anne Evans, Nick Manning, Yasin Osmani, Anne Tulley, and Andrew Wilder, “A Guide to Government in Afghanistan,”
AREU and the World Bank, 2004, http://www.areu.org.af/publications/Full%20Guide%20to%20Government.pdf.
88
Holger Munsch, “Education,” Afghanistan: Findings on Education, Environment, Gender, Health, Livelihood and
Water and Sanitation: From Multidonor Evaluation of Emergency and Reconstruction Assistance from Denmark, Ireland,
the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom, Arne Strand and Gunnar Olesen, eds., CMI Report, 2005, p. 9,
citing ACBAR “Statement for the Afghanistan Development Forum,” Kabul, April 4-6, 2005.

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Education is universally recognized as critical for children’s intellectual and social development,
providing them with critical skills for leading productive lives as citizens and workers.
Education is also central to the realization of other human rights. 89 For girls, moreover, access
to education correlates strongly with later marriage and childbirth,90 which in turn correlate
strongly with improved health, including significantly reduced maternal mortality.
Education not only benefits the children themselves, it also benefits the country’s development.
It is now well-established that increasing girls’ and women’s access to education improves
maternal and child health, improves their own children’s access to education, and promotes
economic growth.91 For example, research has shown that an additional year of school for girls
can reduce infant mortality by 5 to 10 percent, and that reducing the gender gap in education
increases per capita income growth.92 Indeed, studies have found greater returns through higher
wages on school investments for girls than for boys, particularly for secondary education.93
The low numbers of girls receiving secondary education and higher education is especially
troubling and carries profound consequences for the future participation of women in the social,
economic, and political life of the country. Without higher levels of education, women’s
opportunities to secure skilled employment, gain leadership roles in local and national
government, or to impart education as teachers themselves, are severely restricted. As one
woman leader in Kandahar pointed out: “This young generation can be trained well but what
about older girls? They will remain illiterate. An illiterate woman cannot be a teacher. How can
she train the next generation?”94 Some of the most important development benefits of girls’
education for a country also take place at the secondary school level.95
89
See, for example, Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment 13: The Right to
Education, U.N. Doc. E/C.12/1999/10, December 8, 1999, para. 1.
90
See, for example, Barbara Hertz and Gene B. Sterling, “What Works in Girls’ Education: Evidence and Policies from
the Developing World,” Council on Foreign Relations, 2004.
91
Ibid.
92
For information on girls’ enrollment and infant mortality, see T. Paul Schultz, “Returns to Women’s Schooling,”
Women’s Education in Developing Countries: Barriers, Benefits, and Policy, Elizabeth King and M. Anne Hill, eds.
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993); and M. Anne Hill and Elizabeth King, “Women’s Education and
Economic Well-Being,” Feminist Economics 1 (2), 2005, pp. 21–46. For information on girls’ education and economic
growth, see David Dollar and Roberta Gatti, “Gender Inequality, Income, and Growth: Are Good Times Good for
Women?” World Bank Policy Research Report on Gender and Development, working paper series no. 1, 1999, p. 12;
and Stephan Klasen, “Does Gender Inequality Reduce Growth and Development? Evidence from Cross-Country
Regressions,” Policy Research Report on Gender and Development, working paper series no. 7, World Bank, 1999.
93
See, for example, George Psacharopoulos and Harry Anthony Patrinos, “Returns to Investment in Education: A
Further Update,” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 2881, 2002; T. Paul Schultz, “Why Governments Should
Invest More to Educate Girls,” World Development, 30 (2), 2002, pp. 207–25; and Shultz, “Returns to Women’s
Schooling.”
94
Human Rights Watch interview, Kandahar city, December 8, 2005.
95
See, for example, Economic and Social Council, Annual report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to education,
Katarina Tomaševski, submitted pursuant to Commission on Human Rights resolution 2001/29, U.N. Doc.
E/CN.4/2002/60, Commission on Human Rights, 58
th
sess., January 7, 2002 (“Available evidence indicates that the key
to reducing poverty is secondary rather than primary education”); Organisation for Economic Co-operation and